JK32.I 

.H2. 

THE LOUISIANA CASE. 
Dqualitj of Man and Social Equality of Baoe 


SPEECH 



HON. JOHN S. HAGER, 

OF CALIFORNIA, 

IN TH3 


^ENATE OF THE pNITED ^TATES, 


WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 1875. 




WASHINGTON: 

GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE. 

1875. 











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s r E E c n 

Ot-' 

H 0 X. JOHN S. H AGE R . 


The Senate having under consideration the following resolution, reported from 
the Committee on Privileges and Elections by Mr. Mokton on the 8th instant: 

Resolved, That P. B. S. Pinchhaok he admitted as a Senator from the State of 
Louisiana for the term of six years, beginning on the 4th of March, 1873”— 

Mr. HAGEE said: 

Mr. President : It is witli great hesitation and reluctance that I 
rise to address the Senate at this late hour at night after this iiro- 
longed setting, upon a question that has been so ably and so thor¬ 
oughly discussed by others who haVe preceded me. The subject, 
however, with all its correlative issues, is of paramount importance, 
and one that is entitled to our serious and I may say melancholy re¬ 
flection. It relates to events of greater significance and magnitude, 
next to the firing upon Fort Sumter, than any that have occurred in 
the history of our Government since the formation of the Federal 
Constitution. 

Although the pending resolution relates to the admission of a Sen¬ 
ator from the State of Louisiana, it is understood the whole subject 
relating to Louisiana affairs is before the Senate. I shall therefore 
not confine myself strictly to this resolution, but will speak generally 
upon the so-called Louisiana case. When the news first reached us 
of the invasion of a sovereign State, of the investment of its State- 
house, of the forcible ejection of persons, claiming to be elected 
members, from the legislative chamber, and finally of the organiza¬ 
tion of one branch of the Legislature by the Army of the United 
States, there was a spontaneous outburst of indignation from one 
end of the Union to the other. Why has this marked interest been 
manifested in this Hall among the people and by the press through¬ 
out the entire country ? Not because it is a mere question of party 
politics, but because it involves great questions appertaining to con¬ 
stitutional liberty and our republican form of government. 

I am glad that this interest has been manifested. It indicates that 



4 


there is yet a spirit in the land not dead to the calls of liberty and 
country; that sentiments of patriotism yet predominate over all con¬ 
siderations of party. I have observed too, sir, with gratification the 
calm and temperate discussion of the independent and in many instan¬ 
ces of the party press. So long as the weight and power of the press is 
true and devoted to the country, there is yet hope for the country, 
whether it be amid the calamities of civil war or whether it be 
amid usurpations in times of peace. We have had rebellion in hot 
blood against the flag in the open field, and we have had and now 
liave a more dangerous rebellion in cold blood against the Constitution. 
One was Avar, open Avar, and was met and OAmrlhrown by war; the 
'Other, more insidious and more inexcusable, can only be oAmrlhrown 
by the slow process of public opinion, often too slow to arrest the 
danger. That public opinion Aviil yet accomplish it, I have no doubt, 
for in this enlightened age no soA^ereign is so ensconsed behind his bat¬ 
tlements but what that public opinion will iiiahe itself heard, and no 
President, and no Congress, and no party is so enshrouded in the 
XAanoply of power but what it will make itself felt. 

Mr. President, who stands to-day before the American people as 
responsible for the events that have occurred in Louisiana which have 
so couAmlsed the country ? Not the President of the United States, 
for, as we must infer from his late message, he disclaims them as hav¬ 
ing been done by his knowledge or authority; not the General of the 
Army, for ho was not consulted and had no part or lot in the matter; 
not the major-general in command of the Southern Division, includ¬ 
ing Louisiana, for the order went not through him; not the Congress, 
for Congress has not declared war against the sovereign State of 
Louisiana. Who then is responsible ? All that we knoAv is that the 
Army Avith General Sheridan, sent secretly with sealed instructions, 
in command, executed and the Secretary of War ‘‘and all of us,’' as 
he telegraphed to Sheridan, approAmd. That is all the information as 
to authority that we have. Who gaA’-e the orders ? Who iuA-ested 
Kellogg with the authority to direct the movements of the Army of 
the United States ? WhoeA'er he maybe, let it be avowed before the 
American people and let the responsibility rest where it properly be¬ 
longs. Be the responsibility where it may, it must be sustained and 
justified by laAv, or it must be denounced as a usurpation. 

It Avill not do for Senators to shirk or blink the true issue by 
telling us that murders haAm been committed and lawlessness prevails 
in Louisiana, and that there have been unlawful combinations for 
political or other purposes. The public mind is not to be thus 
diverted. If any principle of the Constitution has been violated, 
does it follow as a logical sequence, as we must infer from the re¬ 
marks of some Senators, that it may be justified by the recitals of 
crimes and murders committed in that State. A thousand homicides, 


6 




itlUrdet-s, if you will, will not justify unlawful assaults upon the 
life of the nation. No injustice to the living, white or black, can 
excuse or justify usurpation or violation of the Constitution. 

About a year ago it was my privilege to be honored by taking a 
seat in this Chamber. This Louisiana case, in one of its phases, was 
then pending before the Senate upon the report of the Committee on 
Privileges and Elections, made February 20, 1873, which has been so 
often referred to and quoted from—it was the business of this Com¬ 
mittee to inquire substantially as to the form of government that 
was existing in Louisiana. That report during the progress of this 
debate I for the first time have read and made myself to some extent 
familiar with. Although it be a thrice-told tale, as has been said, it 
unfolds a story that cannot be too often repeated. I believe, sir, that 
it discloses the first fatal error; the first great departure in govern¬ 


ment; the foundation, the origin of the evils the fruits of which we 
are reaping this day; and at the risk of being tedious I desire to refer 
not extensively but briefly, chronologically rather than in detail, to 
certain portions of that report. 

In 1872, on the 4th of November, under the laws and constitution 
of the State, an election took place in Louisiana. The administra¬ 
tion of that State, the governor and all the officers, so far as I know, 
were republican. It was a republican administration of the State, 
government. Warmoth, elected as a republican and at the timo>,J[. 
believe, acting with the republican party, was governor; anti the. 
election was entirely under the control of persons acting wish- and * 
claiming to be of that party. After it took place an extra session of ■■ 
the Legislature was called by Governor Warmoth to meet on the 9th • 
day of December. Between the issuance of the call for the meeting of 
the Legislature and the day on which it was to assemble important 
events transpired in Louisiana, as contained in this report of the.' 
committee and to which I will briefly refer in chronological orde.r^. 

On December 3 was the dispatch which has, been read so often of 
the Attorney-General: 

Department of Justice, 

December 3, 187-2. 


8. B. Packard, 

United States Marshal, Xeio Orleans, Louisiana : 

You are to enforce the decrees and naandates of the United States xonrts no mat- , 
ter hy whom resisted, and General Emory will furnish you with all necessary, 
troops for that purpose. 

GEOBGE H. WILLIAMS, 

Attorney-Qeneralr, 


I find no predicate for this dispatch in the report of the commit-., 
tee. I am unable to determine why the Attorney-General should 
have sent this dispatch to the officer to inform him that he was ta 
do that which the law required him to do. It was the duty of the mar¬ 
shal, as I understand it, to enforce all lawful decrees and mandates 
of the United States courts. whepeTer conveyed to him in legal form. 


I can only infer that it was in aiiticipatien of sonic unusual, sonio 
extraordinary events that were about to ensue. 

December 5 following December 3, almost as soon as the dispatch 
could reach Louisiana, Captain Jackson, of the United States Artil¬ 
lery, arrived in New Orleans at two o’clock at night with two bat¬ 
teries of artillery. 


REi’OUT OF COMIIITTEH. 

Ca 2 ')taiu Jack.^on testifies that he took possession of the State-house at about tvro 
o'clock on the morniusc of the 6th, with instructions to take and hold it under the 
direction of the Ilniteil States marshal, and to act in obedience to his orders. He 
further testifies that he was not stationed in the State-house to prevent liots, hut 
to hold the buildinjr, and that if a riot had occurred in front of the building he 
would not have interfered. 

Who gave this order does not appear by the records or by anything 
that is dhsclosed in this report. Why was it so timely, connected 
with this di.spateh, that an officer of the Army went at night with two 
batteries of artillery? That same night, Decemhor 5, Judge Durell 
issued his void order to Marshal Packard to take possession of the 
State-house, as follows: 

How, therefore, in order to I'trevent the further obstruction of the proceeding.s 
in this cause, and, further, to i»rev6iit a violation of the order of this court, to the 
imminent danger of disturbing the public peace, it is hereby ordered that tlie mar- 
shal of the United States for the district of Louisiana shall forthwith take possession 
of the building known as the Mechanics' Institute, and occupied as the State-house for 
the assembling of the Legislature therein, in the city of Hew Orleans, and hold the 
same subject to the further order of this court, and meanwhile to prevent all imlawful 
assemblage therein under the guise or pretext of authority claimed by virtue of pre¬ 
tended, canvass and returns made by said pretended returning officers in contem])! 
and violation of said restraining order; but the marshal is directed to allow the 
ingress and egress to and from the imblic offices in said building of persons enti¬ 
tled to the same. 

E. H. DHEELL. 

I will simply in this connection read what the committee say in 
regard to that order. The order, which is pronounced by the commit¬ 
tee to be a void order, made by Judge Dnrell is spoken of by the com¬ 
mittee thus: 

It is impossible to conceive of a more irregular, illegal, and in every way inex 
disable act on the part of a judge. Conceding the power of the court to make such 
an order, the judge out of court had no more authority to make it than had the 
marshal. It has not even the form of judicial process. It was not sealed, nor was 
it signed by the clerk, and had no more legal effect than an order issued by any pri¬ 
vate citizen. 

That was an order that under the telegram of the Attorney-General 
the marshal was bound to execute in case he obeyed his superior 
officer I suppose. This order issued as I say on December 5. On 
December 6, Captain Jackson took possession of the State-house 
about two o’clock in the morning. On December 6, the same day, 
Durell’s injunction to restrain the action of the legal canvassing- 
board was issued, which is quoted in this report at page 24, and is as 
follows: 


i 


Injunction.—Issued December 6, ISTi. 

Gircait court of the United States, fifth circuit and district of Louisiana. 

Wm. Pitt Kellogg \ 

vs. I 

Henry C. Warmoth, Jack Wharton, Frank H. Hatch, Durant > Ho. G830. 

Da Ponte, John McEnery, and The New Orleans Republican I 

Printing Company. J 

The President of the United States, greeting : 

Whereas it has been represented to us in our said circuit court on the part of 
William P. Kellogg, by his biU of complaint lately exhibited against jmu and each 
of you, touching certain matters and things therein set forth : 

Now, therefore, in consideration of the premises and of the allegations in said bill 
contained, you, the said above-named defendants, your attorneys, and each of you, 
are hereby commanded aud strictly enjoined under the penalty of the law that you 
absolutely refrain and desist during the pendency of this cause, until the further 
order of this court, from in any manner, either directly or indirectly, considering 
or pretending to consider or canvass any statement, certificate, or return of any 
supervisor or assistant supervisor of registration, or any officer ha\fing any duties 
to perform about or concerning an election held on the 4th day of November, 1872, 
in the State of Louisiana, or relating to any votes or ballots cast at said election, 
except in the presence of John Lynch, Jacob Hawkins, James Longstreet, and 
George E. Bovee, a board of returning officers for said election, or from submitting 
or allowing to be submitted, or from aiding or assisting in the submission to the 
said defendants, Frank H. Ilatch, Jack Wharton, Durant Da Ponte, or any other 
person or persons wdiatsoever, other than the said Hawkins, Bovee, Lynch, and 
Longstreet, any paper, document, affidavit, statement of votes, return of officers of 
election, or other proof in any manner relating to said election, and from allowing 
any other person or persons whatsoever, other than those in this order excepted, 
whether pretending to act as returning officers or in any other capacity, to inspect, 
consider, have access to, canvass, or tamper with any paper, document, affidavit, 
statement of votes, return, or written proof relating to said election, or to the fair¬ 
ness and correctness thereof, that may have lieretofore or may hereafter come into 
his hands or possession, and which by law should properly be laid before, submit¬ 
ted to, or considered by such returning officers of election in making a canvass 
thereof; and that the said defendant, H. C. Warmoth, be further enjoined and in¬ 
hibited from altering, supjDressing, mutilating, destroying, or secreting any such 
document, proof, or paper. 

And that he further desist and be enjoined from in any manner interfering 
with, obstructing, or hindering the said Lynch, Longstreet, "Bovee, and Hawkins, 
or either of them, from full and complete access to, as well as custody of, such doc¬ 
uments, proof, or paper. 

And that he further desist and be enjoined from in any manner interferring 
with, obstructing, or hindering the said Lynch, Longstreet, Bovee, and Hawkins, 
or either of them, from full and complete access to, as well as custody of, such doc¬ 
uments, papers, and imoofs relating to said election as he may or shall have in his 
possession, custody, or control, or as they shall or may demand, either by refusing 
to deliver such dociunents or proofs to them, or either of them, or by any suit or 
proceeding instituted with the intent to hinder, delay, or obstruct them in the per¬ 
formance of their duty as returning officers; aud that he be further restrained 
and enjoined from issuing any commissions to any persons baaed upon any calcu¬ 
lation, deduction, or pretended canvass of ballots cast at said election, or make, 
publish, sign, or deposit in the office of the secretary of state, or in any other 
public office, or cause to be so deposited, any document, statement of persons 
elected to any offices or positions of trust at said election, and from giving any effect 
to the same if already filed and deijosited, unless the same be with the concurrent 
action and lawfully given consent of the said Lynch, Hawkins, Bovee, and Long¬ 
street, or a majority thereof, or of a sufficient number of them to constitute a ma¬ 
jority of a board of returning officers. 

Audit is further ordered thatthesaid defendants. Jack Wharton, Frank H. Hatch 
Durant Da Ponte, and the New Orleans Republican Printing Company, until the 
final he<aring of this cause, or until the further order of the court, be severally and 
respectively enjoined and restrained to the same extent, effect, and manner as said 
complainant has in his bill of complaint prajmd they may severally and respect¬ 
ively be restrained. 

And that writs of injunction in due form of law issue against the said defend¬ 
ants in accordance with the terms of this order. 

And that the restraining order heretofore issued and allowed in this cause con¬ 
tinue in full force and effect until the court shall otherwise order. 

Witness the Honorable Salmon P. Chase, Chief Justice of the Supreme- Court of 


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8 


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tlie United Statee, at the city of New Orleans, this 6th day of December, in the 
year of our Lord 1872. 

[SEAL.] ■F- A. WOOLFLEY, Cleric. 

Upon this order to restrain the canvassing hoard and upon the 
action of this judge and his decrees and what followed the regularity 
of the proceedings in setting up a government for Louisiana depends, 
and what say the committee in regard to this order ? On page 17 of 
the report we read as follows : 


Yiewed in any light in which your committee can consider them, the orders and- 
injunctions made and granted by Judge Durell in this cause are most reprehensi¬ 
ble, erroneous in point of law, and are wholly void for want of jurisdiction ; and 
your committee must express their sorrow and humiliation that a judge of the 
United States should have proceeded in such flagrant disregard of his dxity, and 
have so far overstepped the limits of Federal jurisdiction. 


No words of mine are necessary to give force to this opinion of the 
committee: 

On December 6, the same day, the Lynch board pretended to have 
canvassed the returns. We will see what the committee say in re¬ 
gard to that: 

On the 6th of December, 1872, the Lynch board—Bovee, (who was then acting as 
secretary of state in place of Herron,) Lynch, Longstreet, and Hawkins—pretended 
to have canvassed the returns of the election, and certified to the secretary of state 
that Kellogg had been elected governor; Antoine, lieutenant-governor; Clinton, 
auditor; Field, attorney-general; Brown, superintendent of education; and Des- 
londes, secretary of state; and ahso certified a list of persons whom they had deter¬ 
mined to be elected to the Legislature. 

There is nothing in all the comedy of blunders and frauds under consideration 
more indefensible than the pretended canvass of this board. 

The following are some of the objections to the validity of their proceedings: 

1. The board had been abolished by the act of November 20. 

2. The board was under valid and existing injunctions restraining it from acting 
at all, and an injunction in the Armstead case restraining it from making any can¬ 
vass not based upon the otficial returns of the election. 

3. Conceding the board was in existence, and had full authority to canvass the 
returns, it had no returns to canvass. 

The returns from the parishes had been made, under the law of 1870, to the gov¬ 
ernor, and not one of them was before the Lynch board. 

It was testified before your committee by Mr. Bovee himself, who participated in 
this canvass by the Lynch board, that they were determined to have a republican legis¬ 
lature, and made their canvass to that end. The testimony abundantly establishes the 
fraudulent character of their canvass. In some cases they had what were supposed 
to be copies of the original returns, in other cases they had nothing but newspaper 
statements, and in other cases where they had nothing whatever to act upon, they 
made an estimate based upon their knowledge of the political complexion of the 
parish of what the vote ought to have been. They also counted a large number of 
afldavitspurporting to be sworn to by voters who had been wrongfully denied registra¬ 
tion or the right to vote, many of which affidavits they must have known to be forgeries. 
It was testified by one witness that he forged over a thousand afiidavits, and delivered 
them to the Lynch board, while it was in session. It is quite unnecessary to waste 
time in con.sideiing this part of the case; for no person can examine the testimony 
ever so cursorily without seeing that this pretended canvass had no semblance of 
integrity, 

Farther on we read as follows: 

But for the interference of Judge BureXliw the matter of this State election, amatter 
w'holly beyond his jurisdiction, the McEnery government would to-day have been the de 
facto government of the State. Judge Durell interposed the Army of the United States 
between the people of Lousiana and the only government which has the semblance of 
regularity, and the result of this has been to establish the Kellosg government, so 
far as that State now has any government. For the United States to interfere in a 
State election, and by the employment of troops set up a governor and Leo'islature 
without a shadow of right, and then to refuse redress of the wrong upon the around 
that to grant relief would be interfenng with the rights of the State, is a proposi¬ 
tion difficult to utter with a grave countenance. 


This is the language of the committee, and upou the acts here enu¬ 
merated hinges the legality of the election and of the organization of 
the Legislature in Louisiana which elected Mr. Pinchback, the ap¬ 
plicant for a seat in the Senate. The persons declared elected by this- 
Lynch board as set forth by the report of this committee have been 
the State officers and the Legislature of Louisiana for the past two 
years, sustained as they have been by the Army of the United States. 
Now although we have the act of Congress of May 31, 1870, still in 
force, as follows: 

Sec. 23. And he it further enacted, That whenever any person shall be defeated or 
deprived of bis election to any office, except elector of President or Vice-President, 
liepresentative or Delegate in Congress, or 7nemher of a, State Legislature, by reason of 
the denial to any citizen or citizens who shall offer to vote, of the right to vote, on 
account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude— 

and further providing that such person may have his right of action 
in the Federal coui'ts ,* yet in express violation of its provisions, in the 
case of Antoine, lieutena.nt-governor, vs. Warmoth, Judge Durell issued 
his restraining order to prevent the organization of the senate and 
house of rei)resentatives except as he indicated in his orders, and in 
his orders he enumerated bynames the persons that might convene and. 
the persons who should not convene as members of the Legislature of 
Louisiana, and made that a part of his restraining order. I will omit 
this restraining order on account of its length and merely read what 
the committee say in regard to it. The opinion of the committee is 
on page 43 of the report and is as follows: 

Here was a restraining order, having the force of an injunction, issued for no 
purpose under heaven except to control the organization of the Legislature and 
compel the seating of those membei’s who had been returned and certified to by 
the Lynch board, and exclude those who had been certified to by the De Feriet board. 

When we consider that the act of Congress under which this proceeding was in¬ 
stituted by express words excludes members of the State Legislature from the 
right to maintain any proceedings in a Federal court to obtain their seats, even 
when they have been defeated and deprived of their rights, because citizens have 
been denied the’right to vote on account of race, color, or previous condition of serv¬ 
itude; and that the State-house was held by Federal troops under the unlawful 
and void order of Judge Durell, hereinbefore set forth, which order commanded 
the marshal to prevent “all unlawful assemblage therein under the guise or pre¬ 
text of authority claimed by virtue of pretended canvass and returns made by said 
De Feriet board,” we can comprehend the full force and efiect of the additional re¬ 
straining order in the Antoine case. 

***** 5lr 

Indeed, it is impossible not to see that this bill was filed, and the restraining 
order thereon was issued, for the sole purpose of accomplishing, what no Federal 
court has the jurisdiction to do, the organization of a State Legislature. 

And your committee cannot refrain from expressing their astonishment that any 
judge of the United States should thus unwarrantably have interfered with a State 
government, and know no language too strong to express their condemnation of 
such a proceeding. 

I do not think that any language I could use would be stronger in 
condemnation of the action of the judge in pronouncing that decree 
than the committee use themselves. 

While these proceedings were progressing before Judge Durell 
let us look at the moving power behind the throne. We find while 
they were in progre.ss in Louisiana the United States marshal was- 


U) 


telegraphing to tho Atfcornny-Geiieral ot the United States, and the 
collector of the port (Casey) was telegraphing to the President. The 
correspondence is here recorded. I will present these telegrams to 
the Senate without remark in the order of their dates, as follows; 

New Ouleans, December Q, 1872. 

President Grant : 

Marshal Packard took possession of State-house this morning at an early hour- 
with military posse, in obedience to a mandate of circuit court, to prevent illegal 
assemblage of persons under guise of authority of Warmoth’s returning board, in 
violation of injunction of circuit court. Decree of court just rendered declares 
AVarmoth’s returning board illegal, and orders the returns of the election to be 
forthwith placed before the legal board. This board will probably soon declare the 
result of the election of officers of State and Legislature, which will meet in State- 
liouse with protection of court. The decree vms sweeping in its provisions ^ and If en¬ 
forced, will save the republican majority, and give Louisiana a republican Legislature 
and State government, and check Warmoth in his usurpations. AYarmoth’s demo¬ 
cratic .sup])orters are becoming disgusted with him, and charging that his usurpa¬ 
tions are ruining their cause. 

JAS. F. CASEY. 


Nev/ Orleans, December G, 1872. 

Attorney-General AYiij.iams, 

Washington, D. C.: 

lieturning board provided by election of seventy, under which election was held, 
and Avhich United States coui t sustains, promulgated in official journal this morn¬ 
ing result of election of Legislature. House stands seventy-seven republicans, 
thirty-two democratic ; senate twenty-eight republicans, eight democratic. Board 
counted ballots attached to affidavits "of colored persons wrongfully prevented from 
voting, filed with chief supervisor. 


S. B. PACKAED, 
United States Marshal. 


New ORLEAN.S, December 9, 1872. 

Hon. Geo. H. AYilliam.s, 

Attorney-General, Washington D. C.: 

Eeturning board has officially promulgated in official journal this morning the 
result of the election for State officers. Kellogg's maiority 18,861. 

B. "PACKAED, 

• United States Marshal. 
New Orleans, December Q, 181% 

Hon. Geo. H. AYilliams, 

Attorney-General: 

Governor AYarmoth has been impeached by vote of 58 to 6. AYarmoth’s leffis, 
lature returned b}' his board has made no pretense of a session. ° 

S. B. PACKAED, 

- United States Marshal. 


, ^EW Orleans, Louisiana, December 9,. 1872. 

Hon. Geo. 11. AA'illiams, 

Attorney-General : 

Senate, by vote of 17 to 5, have resolved into high court of impeachment.- Senator 
Harris elected president of the Senate, Lieutenant-Governor Piuchback beiu'>- 
now governor. ® 

S. B. PACKAED, 
United States Marshal. 


XT TT Orleans, December 9, 1872. 

Hon. Geo. H. Y illiams. 

Attorney-General, Washington, D. C.: 

Lieutenant-Governor Pinchback qualified and took possession of the ^overno^’s 
office to-night. Senate organized as high court of impeachment. Chief Justice 
Ludeling presiding, and adjourned to meet Monday next. It is believed that all 
the democrats members of General Assembly will qualify and take seats to-mor- 


S. B. PACKAED, 
United States Marshal. 






11 


Hitherto nothing appears to justify or warrant Federal interfereneo 
in the local government in Louisiana. The President had not been 
called upon for Federal protection ; but after the mischief had been 
done he was called upon to protect the creature called a government 
set up by Federal authority, as follows : 

jS’ew Orlsans, December 9, 18T2. 

We have the lionor to transmit to your excellency the following concurrent reso¬ 
lution of both houses of the CJ-eneial Assembly and to request an early reply: 

Whereas the General Assembly is now' convened in compliance with the call of 
the govei noi-, and certain evil-disposed persons are reported to be forming combina¬ 
tions to (listui'h the public peace, defy the lawful authority, and the State is threat¬ 
ened with violence: Therefore, 

Beit resolved by the senate and house of representatives of the State of Louisiana 
in General Assembly convened, That the President of the United States be requested 
to afford the protection guaranteed each State by the Constitution of the United 
States when thieatened w'ith domestic violence, and that the presiding officers of 
the General Assembly transmit this resolution immediately, by telegraph or other¬ 
wise, to the I’resident of the United States, 

Adopted in General AssembU' convened this 9th day of December, A. D. 167-2. 

p: P. S. PLN'CHBxVCK, 

Lieutenant-Governor, and President of the Senate. 

CUAS. W. LOWELL, 

Sj/eaJcer of the House of Itepresentatives. 


Next in order we have— 

Xew OitLEAXS, December 9, 1372. 

President Grant : 

Having taken the oath of office and being in the possession of the gubernatorial 
office, it devolves upon me to urge tlie necessity of a favorable consideration of the 
request of the General Assembiy as conveyed in the concui rent resolution of this 
day telegraphed to you requesting the protection of the United States Government. 
Be pleased to send the necessary orders to General Emory. This seems to me a 
necessary measure of precaution", although all is quiet here. 

P. B. S. PIXCHEACK, 

Liexitenant-Governor, Acting Governor of Louisiana. 


Xew' Orleans, Louisiana, December 11, 1372. 

Hon. George H. Williajis, 

Attorney-General: 

I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your dispatch. May I suggest 
that the commanding general be authorized to furnish troops upon my requisition 
upon him for the protection of the Legislature and the gubernatorial office ? The moral 
effect would be great, and in my judgment tend greatly to allay any trouble likely 
to grow out of the recent inflammatory proclamation of Warmoth. I beg you to 
believe that I will act in all things with discretion. 

P. B. S. PIXCIIBACK, 
Lieutenant-Governor, Acting Governor. 


Xew' Orleans, December 11, 1872. 

Pi-esident Grant : 

Parties interested in the success of the democratic party, particularly the Xew 
Orleans Times, are making desperate efforts to array the people against iis. Old 
citizens are dragooned into an opposition they do not feel, and pressure is hourly 
growing; our members are poor and adversaries are rich, and otters are made that 
are difficult for them to withstand. There is danger that they vnll break our quorum. 
The delay in placing troops at disposal of Governor Pinchback, in accordance with joint 
resolution of Monday, is disheartening our friends and cheering our enemies. If re¬ 
quisition of Legislature is complied with all difficulty will be dissipated, the party 
saved, and everything go on smoothly. If this is done, the tide will be turned at 
once in our favor. The real underlying sentiment is with us, if it can but be eu- 
coura<’-ed. Governor Pinchback acting with great discretion, as is the Legislature, 

»„.i they so continue. JAS.F. CASEY. 

Collector. 




12 


Xew Ouleaxs, 11, 1872. 

Hon. George Williams: 

If President in some way indicate recognition, Governor Pinchback and Legis¬ 
lature would settle everything. Oar friends here acting discreetly. 

W. P. KELLOGG. 


Xew Orleans, ll, 1872. 

Pre.sident Grant: 

Democratic members of Legi.slature taking their seats. Most, if not all, ■will so 
in next few days. Important that you immediately recognize Governor Pinchback's 
legislature in some manner, either by instructing General Emory to comply with 
any requisition by Governor Pinchback, under joint resolution of Legislature of 
Monday, or otherwise. This would quiet matters much. I earnestly urge this and 
ask a reply. 

JAMES E. CASEYk 


New Orleans, December 12, 1872. 

President G rant : 

The condition of affairs is this: The Dnited States circuit court has decided 
which is the legal board of canvassers. Upon the basis of that decision a Legisla- ' 
ture has been organized in strict conformity with the laws of the State, Warmoth 
impeached, and thus Pinchback, as provided by the constitution, became acting 
governor. The chief justice of the supreme court organized the senate into a court 
of impeachment, and Associate Justice Tallifeiro administered oath to Governor 
Pinchback. The Lecislature, fully organized, has proceeded in regular routine of 
business since Monday. Notwithstanding this, Warmoth has organized a pre¬ 
tended Legislature, and it is proceeding with pretended legislation. A conflict be¬ 
tween these two organizations may at any time occur. A conflict may occur at 
any hour, and in my opinion there is no safety for the legal government wuthout 
the Federal troops are given in compliance with the requisition of the Legislature. 
The supreme court is known to he in sympathy with the republican State government. 

If a decided recognition of Governor Pinchback and the legal Legislature were 
m.ade, in my judgment it would settle the whole matter. General Longstreet has 
been appointed bv Governor Pinchback as adjutant-general of State militia. 

JAMES F. CASEY. 


DErAKTMKNT OF JESTICE, 

December 12, 1S72. 

Acting Governor Pinchback, 

New Orleans, Louidana: 

Let it be understood that you are recognized by the President as the lawful executive, 
of Louisiana, and that the body assembled at Mechanics' Institute is thelaivful Legisla¬ 
ture of the State, and it is suggested that you make proclamation to that effect, and 
also that all necessary assistiince will be given to you and the Legislature herein, 
recognized to protect the State from disorder and violence. 

GEO. H. WILLIAMS, 

Attorney-General. 

Thus the fraud and usurpation were recoguized by the Attorney-. 
General. 


Now for a moment wo will refer to wliat the report discloses as to 
the other side representing the people and not the Federal officials : 

New' Orleans, December 11, 1872. 

The President op the United States: 

Under an order from the judge of the United States district court, investing - 
James Longstreet, Jacob Hawkins, and others -wnth the powers and duties of 
returning officers under State election law, and charging them with the duty of 
completing the legal returns and declaring the result in accordance thereM'ith, 
those persons have promulgated results based upon no returns whatever, and no 
evidence except ex parte statements They have constructed a pretended General 
Assembly, composed mainly of candidates defeated at the election, and those can¬ 
didates, protected by United States military forces, have taken possession of the 
State-house and have organized a pretended Legi.slature, which to-day has passed 
pretended articles of impeachment against the governor; in pursuance of which 
the person claiming to be a lieutenant-governor, but whose term had expired, pro¬ 
claimed himself acting governor, broke into the executive office under the protec¬ 
tion of United States soldiers, and took possession of the archives. In the mean 





13 


time the General Assembly has met at the city hall, an;l organized for business 
with sixty members in the house and twenty-one in the senate, being more than a 
quorum of both bodies. I ask and believe that no violent action be taken, and no 
force used by the Government, at least until the supreme court shall have passed 
final judgment on the case. A full statement of the facts will be laid before you 
and the Congress in a few days. 

H. C. WARMOTH, 
Governor of Louisiana. 


His Excellency TJ. S. Graxt, 

President United States : 


Ke'W Orle.vns, 12, 1872. 


Claiming to be governor-elect of this State, I beg you, in the name of all justice, 
to suspend recognition of either of the dual governments now in operation here until 
there can be laill before you all facts, and both sides, touching legitimacy of either 
government. The people denying the legitimacy of Pinchback government and 
its Legislature simply ask to be heard,through committee of many of our best citi¬ 
zens on eve of departure for Washington, before you recognize the one or the other 
of said govei-nmeuts. I do not believe we will be condemned before we are fully 
heard. 

JXO. McENERY. 


Xew Orleans, December 12, 1872. 

Sir : As chairman of a committee of citizens appointed under authority of a mass¬ 
meeting recently held in this city, I am instructed to inform you that said com¬ 
mittee is about leaving here for Washington to lay before you and the Congress of 
the United States the facts of the political difficulties at present existing in this 
State, and further earnestly to request you to delay executive action in the prem¬ 
ises until after the arrival and hearing of said committee, which is composed of 
business and professional men, without regard to past political affiliations. 

THOMAS A. ADAMS, 
Chairman. 

His Excellency U. S. Grant, 

President of the United States. 

These appeals from Governor Warmoth and Governor-elect McEn- 
ery and from the citizens of Louisiana were spurned and treated with 
contempt, as the following will show : 

DECAItTJIEXT OF JUSTICE, 

December 13, 1872. 

Hon. John McExery, 

Neiu Orleans, Louisiana : ' 

Tour visit with a hundred citizens toill be unavailing so far as the President is con¬ 
cerned. His decision is made and will not be changed, and the sooner it is acquiesced 
in the sooner good order and peace will be restored. 

GEO. H. WILLLIMS, 

Attorney-General. 

Finally we hat^e the following: • 

Washixgtox, December 11, 1872. 

General W. H. Emory, U. S. A., 

Commanding Ne^o Orleans, Louisiana : 

You may use all necessary force to preserve the peace, and will recognize the au¬ 
thority of Governor Pinchback. 

Bv order of the President: 

E. D. TOWNSEND, 

Adjutant-General. 

And thus the government was established under the decrees made 
hy Judge Durell, which hy the committee are pronounced void and 
without authority of law, and this government has been maintained 
in place, and is all the government the people of Louisiana have had 
for two years past. 

Now what does the committee say of these proceedings ? I will 
read from the opinion of the majority, which is reported on page 44. 



The committee making the majority report were composed of Messrs.- 
Carpenter, Logan, Alcorn, and Anthony, still members of this 
body, all of the republican party, and I believe in good standing in 
that party, and is as follows: 

OPINION OF IIAJORITY OF COMMITTEE. 

It is the opinion of yonr committee that hut for the unjustiftable interference of 
Jndge Durell, whose orders wei’e executed by United States troops, the canvass 
made by the De Ueriet board, and promulgated by the governor, declaring Mc- 
Enery to have been elected governor, &.C., and also declaring who had been elected 
to the Legislature, would have been acquiesced in by the people, and that govern¬ 
ment would have entered quietly upon the exercise of the sovereign power of the 
State. But the proceedings of Judge Durell and the support giv'en to him by 
United States troops, resulted in establishing the authority de facto of Kellogg 
and his associates in State offices, and of the i>ersons declared by the Lynch board 
to be elected to the Legislature. We have already seen that the proceedings of 
that board cannot be sustained without disregarding all the principles of law ap¬ 
plicable to the subject, and ignoring the distinction between good faith and fraud. 

Your ^committee are therefore ledl to the conclusion that, if the election held in 
November, 1872, be not absolutely void for frauds committed therein, McEnery and 
his associates in State offices, and the persons certified as members of the Legisla¬ 
ture by the De Eeriet board, ought to be recognized as the legal government of the 
State. Considering all the facts established bef ore your committee, there seems no es¬ 
cape frojn the alternative that the 2teEnery government must be recognized by Con¬ 
gress or Congress must provide for a re-election. 

Now, if this Senate should be disposed to follow the recommouda- 
tion of the committee, the election of Mr. Pinchback must be de¬ 
clared illegal, for he was not elected by the legal Legislature, as cer¬ 
tified by the De Feriet board, but by the Kellogg usurpation. 

I will also read from the opinions of the minority Senator Trum¬ 
bull’s opinion on page 61. He says : 

The history of the world does not furnish a more palpable instance of usurpation 
than that by which Pinchback was made governor, and the i)eisons returned by 
the Lynch board the Legislature of Louisiana. 

I also quote from Senator Morton's minority opinion, pages 76, 77 : 

The conduct of Judge Durell, sitting in the circuit court of the United States, 
cannot he justified or defended. He grossly exceeded his jurisdiction, and assumed 
the exercise of powers to which he could lay no claim. The only authority he had in 
the matter grew out of the act of Congress of 1870 to enforce the fifteenth amendment,, 
and the act amendatory of that, passed in 1871, which gave to the courts of the 
United States jurisdiction in all cases in law and equity arising under the former 
act. Under the first act two classes of cases might arise : first, actions to enforce 
the rights of those who had been illegally denied the right to vote upon the ground 
of race, color, or previous condition of servitude; and second, actions to enforce 
the rights of those who had been deprived of office by reason of the denial to per¬ 
sons of the right to vote on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude ; 
and suits in equity ancillary or in aid of these rights of action would come within 
the jurisdiction of the circuit court of £he United States, among which would be a 
suit to perpetuate testimony. But the pretense that in a suit to perpetuate testi¬ 
mony the court could go beyond the natural and reasonable jurisdiction to decide 
who constituted the legal returning board under the laws of Louisiana, and to 
enforce the rights of such as it might determine to be members of that boai d and to 
epjoin others who were not, is without any foundation in law or logic. 

In the Antoine case. Judge Durell not only assumed to determine who consti¬ 
tuted the legal returning board, but to prescribe who should be pei-mitted to take 
part in the organization of the Legislature and to enjoin all persons from taking 
part in such organization who were not returned by the Lynch board as elected ; 
and this assumption of jurisffiction was made in the face of the express provision 
in the act of 1870 that its benefits should not extend to candidates for electors for 
Congress, or for the State Legislature. His order issued in the Kellogg case to the 
United States marshal to take possession of the State-house for the purpose of 
preventing unlawful assemblages, under which the marshal called to his aid a por¬ 
tion of the Army of the United States as a posse comitatus can oniy be charac¬ 
terized as a gross usurpation. 


1 


Such is the opinion of Senator Mortox, who is still present here’ 
in the Chamber and also in good standing in the republican party. 

Senator Hill substantially agreed with the majority except as to> 
the proposed remedy. We thus have the unanimous opinion of the 
entire commitree as to the usurpation of Judge Durell in promul¬ 
gating his decrees which was the foundation upon which the gov¬ 
ernment was constituted and the Legislature was organized. To the 
government and Legislature thus brought into existence the appli¬ 
cant for a seat in this Chamber is indebted for his election. 

Thus stands the record among the archives'of the Senate on the 
report of a committee, which was instructed to inquire into the facts 
of this case. As 1 say they report that this government was estab¬ 
lished by the void decrees of this Federal judge sustained by the 
Army of the United States and the Attorney-General. It was a gov¬ 
ernment that was conceived, according to my interpretation, in the 
telegram of the Attorney-General of Decembers and brought into 
being by a prearranged combination and interference by the Federal 
officials at New Orleans not native or to the manner born. Bovee 
testifies they were determined to have a republican Legislature 
and made their canvass to that end.” Casey telegraphs to the 
President: 

Dnrell’s decree is sweeping, and if enforced will save the republican party and 
give Louisiana a republican Legislature and State government. 

A telegram of that character to the President of the country and 
of the whole country requires no comment. Casey calls on the 
President to recognize the government thus established and to sus¬ 
tain the action had by the Army; Packard calls on the Attorney- 
General for like purposes ; and by both it is granted. The Army sus¬ 
tained and yet sustain the usurpation. 

Sir, can despotism in the destruction or formation of governments- 
go further than this ? Yet these men are all in office, Casey, Pack¬ 
ard, and the Attorney-General. A decent respect for the opinions of 
mankind required that Durell should abdicate, and a decent respect 
for the opinions of mankind required he should resign his office to 
escape impeachment. The Attorney-General not only remains in 
office, but has been nominated to the highest judicial position in the 
gift of the Government, no doubt' the reward of merit. Durell is 
out of office—parties, like republics, are sometimes ungrateful—but 
perhaps he too is destined to be elevated or at least nominated to 
some more exalted position as his reward for valuable services ren¬ 
dered. And at some future day some eulogist of his party, equally 
gifted with those who have preceded me, will perhaps rise here in his 
place to pronounce his panegyric, and with like force and emphasis 
apply to him durum et venerahile nomen. 

For two years this State government, this usurpation, has remained 


10 


in power and tlie people of Louisiana have been without remedy 
here or elsewhere. For two years this record has remained before 
the Senate showing that Louisiana has been deprived of her sover¬ 
eignty, yet not a voice of the dominant party has been raised here in 
her behalf. Perhaps I should except one, the Senator from Wiscon¬ 
sin not now in his place, [Mr. Carpenter.] He offered a remedial 
measure and supported it with an argument of great power and elo¬ 
quence ; but he might say to his compeers of the dominant party in 

this Chamber with Coriolauus: 

Alone I did it. 

And alone he stands as the only one of the dominant party upon this 
floor who has raised a voice in behalf of down-trodden Louisiana. 

Sir, if the action of the Administration in Louisiana, unveiled as it 
is by this report, is to stand as a precedent unrebuked and without 
remedy; in Louisiana to-day, in Arkansas to-morrow; in State after 
State over the whole Union, and finally in the Congress itself, how 
long will it be before some one bolder than the rest, some American Max¬ 
iminus or some American Napoleon, shall seize upon all, and concen¬ 
trating all and consolidating all shall stamp his heel on all that we 
regard as sacred and valuable and in the place of our republican in¬ 
stitutions establish an overshadowing despotism. 

After every appeal to the Executive and to Congress for relief had 
failed, on the 14th of September last the people of Louisiana rose in 
their majesty and by force—say by revolution—drove the usurpers 
from place and installed those in office who they believed were elected 
by the people. Sir, I do not stand here to justify or condemn their 
act, or to draw refined ethical distinctions between usurpation and 
revolution. Our fathers rose in rebellion agaipst Great Britain and 
proclaimed to the world that governments derived their just powers 
from the consent of the governed, and that when any form of gov¬ 
ernment became destructive of certain ends enumerated, it was the 
duty of the people to alter and to abolish it. Perhaps, too, they re¬ 
membered the injunction— 

Who would bo free themselves must strike the blow. 

At all events it illustrated how weak was the creature called gov¬ 
ernment set up by Federal power and the void decrees—I wa.s 
going to say, of a corrupt judge—I will say of a pliant and degraded 
judge. It illustrated how strong were the people and how strong 
was public sentiment against that government. It was swept away 
like chaff before the whirlwind; it was the power of the majority 
against the minority, of the people against the usurpers, and it 
showed to the -world how weak was the government thus set up as 
against that power. But again the Executive interfered, the Army 
was interposed, and again the people submitted and bowed their 
heads to Federal authority. 


17 


If it be true, as reported by the committee, that the government of 
1872 was established by usurpation, will any Senator of the dominant 
party tell us how Louisiana is to regain her liberty, her autonomy, the 
control of her government ? Do Kellogg and the Federal officers enjoy 
a perpetuity ? Are they to remain in place forever ? With the return¬ 
ing board under his control, with the Army at his command, how is 
Kellogg to be dislodged from power? Louisiana complains to-day for 
the usurpation of 1872, not of her own citizens, but of Federal officers, 
the collector, the marshal, the judge, the Attorney-General, and the 
Army of the United States, as the disturbers of her peace, the usurp¬ 
ers of her government, the oppressors of her people, and the plunderers 
of her citizens. As the committee say, if she had been left to herself 
the McEnery government would have been installed and the people 
would have acquiesced. They would then haAm had a majority 
and not a minority government. A government of the people and 
not a usurpation. Did not the Attorney-General know what would 
follow when he sent his telegram of December 3 ? Did he not know 
that the void decrees of Judge Durell would follow when he sent that 
telegram ? Did not the Attorney-General know that the proceedings 
before Judge Darell were void, and that the government thereby 
established was a usurpation ? If he did not he is unfit to hold the 
office he now occupies. Officers of the Army, as we are told, are not 
presumed to know much about law, but the same cannot be said of the 
head of the Dej^artment of Justice, and I presume he knew what the 
effect of these orders were. I iiresume when he was telegraphing re¬ 
sponsively to communications from Packard and from Kellogg that he 
knew Avhat had transpired, and that these void decrees were being 
enforced. Is not the President now fully advised in regard to this 
Kellogg government and how it has been inaugurated and maintained 
in place? In his late message, January 13, 1875, he says: 

It has been bitterly and persistently alleged that Kellogg was not elected. 
Whether he was or not is not altogether certain, nor is it any more certain that his 
competitor, McEnery, was chosen. The election was a gigantic fraud, and there 
are no reliable returns of its result. Kellogg obtained possession of the office, and 
in my opinion has more right to it than his competitor. 

On the 20th of February, 1873, the Committee on Privileges and Elections of the 
Senate made a report in which they say they were satisfied by testimony that the 
manipnlation of the election machinery by Warmoth and others was equivalent to 
20,000 votes ; and they add that to recognize the McEnery Government “ would be 
recognizing a government based upon fraud, in defiance of the wishes and inten¬ 
tion of the voters of the State.” Assuming the correctness of the statements in 
this report, (and they seem to have been generally accepted by the country,) the 
great crime in Louisiana, about which so much has been said, is that one is holding 
the office of governor who was cheated out of 20,000 votes against another whose 
title to the office is undoubtedly based on fraud and in defiance of the wishes and 
intentions of the voters of the State. 

The President refers to the same rejiGrt from which I have been so 
largely quoting. 

Did he read all that report ? 

I regret that the President overlooked that portion of the report 

2 H 


18 


Avliicli I have read this eveuiiig—especially that on the twenty- 
seventh and twenty-eigth pages—of forged affidavits, and of the fraud¬ 
ulent manner in which the returns were gotten up. Those things 
are entirely omitted, also the conclusions of the committee ; and yet 
the President says that there were frauds, as the committee say, to the 
extent of 20,000 votes. The majority of the committee also say that 
the McEnery government ought to have been installed in office and 
would have been if the Government had not interfered, and that the 
people would have acquiesced in it as the rightful government. 

The usurpation of 1872 is the first that has occurred in times of 
peace in the history of our country where a sovereign State has been 
invaded and a government set up by Federal and military power* 
It is without precedent, and the cases that have been referred to are 
not parallel Avith this ; none but itself can be its parallel; and if it 
ever becomes the duty of some future Gibbon to write the history of 
our decline and fall, it will stand a memorable monument to guide 
the researches of the historian. 

The events that have transpired since, in the last election in Lou¬ 
isiana, are the natural results of the usurpations to which I have re¬ 
ferred, and the same instruments have been used for their accomplish¬ 
ment. In the election of 1874 there was the same manipulation of 
the returns, by the same set of men, the falsification of the vote 
by the returning board, and the voice of the people was again set 
' aside. Kellogg again appears as the agent and manager, supported by 
Federal authority. I shall not attempt to recapitulate the history of 
this last election. I propose merely to speak of these events so far as 
they are national. The important question to my mind is, even if we 
admit the first election or the second election were void for fraud, can 
the President with the Army invade a State and setup a government ? 
It must not be forgotten that the day the Legislature assembled the 
State-house was invested and under guard, and none were admitted 
except by Federal authority. The proceedings that took place have 
been detailed so often that it is hardly necessary to refer to them. 
Wiltz organized the house temporarily. He was elected as its speaker. 
He called upon De Trobriand to quell some disturbance that had taken 
place in the lobby. That is made use of here and by the President, 
in his late message, as a point against the democratic party. It is 
said in the message “ the first call upon the military was made by 
the democrats.’^ In such matters there should be neither democrats 
nor republicans. Wiltz as sjAeaker did first call on De Trobriand. 
But it must not be forgotten the State-house was under guard of the 
United States Army, and that none were permitted to enter therein 
but by the permit of the guard. Even members of Congress, the com¬ 
mittee of the House sent there to investigate and report, could not 
center the State-house or the legislative chamber except by the per- 


19 


'mission of United States officers. There was, therefore, no one else 
to call npon hut the United States military officer, who allowed them 
to enter and who had the control of the State-house at the time. The 
State authorities and i3olice were displaced by the military, and had 
no power or authority to interfere. 

Next De Trobriand, without being invited by the speaker, marched 
in with his sword by his side and his platoon of soldiers and marched 
out those persons who were there claiming to be elected by the peo¬ 
ple, and then he proceeded to organize that branch of the Legisla¬ 
ture. Now, by what authority did he take possession of the State- 
house ? By what authority did he remove persons claiming to be 
elected members, and by what authority did he proceed to organize 
that branch of the Legislature ? It was a house of representatives 
de facto, all that Louisiana has had, all that the President has sus¬ 
tained in Louisiana for the past two years. It was peaceably assem¬ 
bled. At the time De Trobriand entered it was an organization 
effected and peaceable, and it was dissolved by military force. Can 
despotism go further than this 1 By what authority did the United 
• States interfere with the Army? Who will explain ? Whether or no 
'the speaker was regularly elected, whether or not the yeas and nays 
were called, are questions for Louisiana and her authorities to decide, 
and not for the Federal Government. Whether it was a house de 
Jacto or a house dejure, who must decide ? The rule must be the same 
in every State of the Union. The President or the Army has no more 
authority to organize or to interfere in the organization of the Legis¬ 
lature in Louisiana than in Pennsylvania, Indiana, or any other 
State of the Union. 

Now, in regard to the pretext for Government interference in Lou¬ 
isiana, we have the report of the House committee, a committee that 
was sent there to investigate this very matter, composed of two 
members of the republican party and one Democrat. The report of 
that committee is a complete refutation of the allegations which 
have been made on this floor against the people of Louisiana, and 
in substance is as follows: 

First. That there was no intimidation of negroes, but that there was 
intimidation of the white voters by Federal power. 

Second. That the election was remarkable for its fairness. 

Third. That the conservatives had a large majority. 

Fourth. That the action of the returning board was unfair and 
illegal. 

Fifth. The stories about oppression, &,c., of the white-leaguers were 
fictions. 

This report is the best evidence that we have, better than any mere 
rumor, better than any newspapers or telegrams that have been re¬ 
ceived and referred to, and the only quasi official evidence that has 


20 


"been brought before us. And it is corroborated and sustained by the 
clergy and the laity and the better class of the peojile of Louisiana 
generally. 

If this organization thus eifected by Wiltz bad been an organiza¬ 
tion of the republican party, no De Trobriand and no Sheridan would 
have interfered. I put that on record before the American x)eople, 
that no officer of the Army of the United States would have inter¬ 
fered with the organization had it been an organization effected in 
the same way by the republican party. 

In regard to the subsequent acts of Sheridan, I have nothing to add 
to that which has been said by others. I have no desire to pluck 
one laurel from his brow. But if the report from the committee of 
the House be true, his dispatches in denunciation of the x^eople of 
Louisiana are inexcusable, and will stand among the most infamous 
and despotic acts perpetrated in times of peace to be found recorded 
in our history, which the brightest page in his military career can 
never obliterate, which no ignorance of law can excuse, and human¬ 
ity and decency will never forget. If I had been told that Sheridan’s 
acts were intended to add insult to injury, to rekindle the dead em¬ 
bers of civil war and again plunge the South into scenes of blood and 
violence, I could understand it. If such was the design, it has most 
signally failed, and I am glad of it. I am glad that the people of Lou¬ 
isiana have submitted to usurpation and even indignity. Their for¬ 
bearance has enlisted the sympathy of the people of the whole conn - 
try, and will yet lead to their deliverance and emancipation. 

Now, sir, I would ask, does any Senator pretend to deny the tru-th 
of the report made by the Senate Committee on Privileges and Elec¬ 
tions, that the government of Louisiana as organized in 1872 was 
brought into existence by the void decrees of Judge Durell, sustained 
by the Attorney-General and the Army of the United States, and that 
it was a usurpation ? So far as I remember I cannot recall that one 
Senator has j)recisely placed himself upon that ground and made that 
denial here. Does any Senator pretend that there is any constitu¬ 
tional authority to justify the recent investment of the State-house 
of Louisiana and the forcible ejection from the legislative chamber 
of persons claiming to be members, and the organization of the house 
by the officers and military of the United States ? So far as I know, 
not one. If in the Constitution there be any warrant or authority 
for the proceeding, let it be produced. The President does not pre¬ 
tend to justify it. I believe my colleague [Mr. Sargent] did attempt 
to justify it ,to some extent and to maintain that the President had 
such authority to interfere, but against his position I quote the Pres- 
dent himself. We must infer the President does not approve of the 


21 


military interference in Louisiana. On page 5 of his late message of 
January 13, iu reference to this matter, the President says: 

Eespecting the alleged interference by the military with the organization of the 
Legialatiire of Louisiana on the 4th instant, I have no knowledge or information 
which has not been received by me since that time and puhlisheci. My first infor¬ 
mation was from the papers of the morning of the 5th of January. I did not know 
that any such thing was anticipated, and no orders nor suggestions were ever given 
to any military officer in that State upon that subject prior to the occurrence. I 
am well aware that any military interference by the officers or troops of the United 
States with the organization of the State Legislature or any of its procee lings, or 
with any civil department of the Grovernment, is repugnant to our ideaa of govern¬ 
ment. I can conceive of no case, not involving rebellion or insurrection, where such 
interference by authority of the General Government ought to be permitted or can be 
justified. But there are circumstances connected with the late legislative imbroglio 
in Louisiana which seem to exempt the military from any intentional wrong in that 
matter. Knowing that they had been placed in Louisiana to prevent domestic 
violence and aid in the enforcement of the State laws, the officers and troops of the 
United States may well have supposed that it was their duty to act when called 
upon by the governor for that purpose. 

Whatever Senators may think, the President does not justify inter¬ 
ference by the Government. 

The President declares in his message he did not give the order for 
interference. Further, he says on page 7 of the same message: 

I have no desire to have United States trooiis interfere in the domestic concerns 
<©f Louisiana or of any other State. 

Now, sir, that reads very well in print. It sounds very well in 
words. When, however, we remember that the President was privy 
to the usurpation of 1872; when we recall the recent message that he 
.sent to us in regard to Arkansas affairs, we might say with the Latin 
poet —Sic notus Ulysses. 

But, sir, notwithstanding the declarations of the President in this 
message, the deed has been done, the usurpation has been accom¬ 
plished. Yet no one is censured, no one is recalled, no one reprimanded 
and no one punished. Senators do not pretend to defend the act, and 
the Army is still retained in place. As was in substance said by the 
. Senator from New Jersey [Mr. Frelinghuysen] and by others, iu- 
.asmuch as it has been done, they were not disposed to see it undone. 

We have the evidence that an act of despotism and usurpation has 
been accomplished in Louisiana, and yet the Senators of the dominant 
party are willing the gavernment thus established should be kept in 
power, and are unwilling that it should be resolved back into a 
'republican form: one of the people. I do not know that any other 
Senator has pretended to justify the acts that have been perpetrated 
in Louisiana unless it be the Senator from New York, [Mr. Conkling,] 
who claimed to justify it on the ground that it was intended to quell 
. a riot. If I understood his argument rightly, it was to the effect that 
the governor of Louisiana, as chief magistrate, had the right to call 
on the military of the United States to suppress riots, and that De 
Trobriand entered the State-house, with his sword by his side and his 
platoon of soldiers with him, rightfully aud for the purpose of quell- 
ano- a riot. When we have the evidence before us that De Trobriand 

O 


had possession of the State-house; th'at he let nobody in there excei)t 
by the permit of his authority; that by a cordon of soldiers the State- 
house was corraled, and every man therein was there with his - 
consent, it is very strange that De Trobriand would enter his own 
castle thus guarded and protected to quell a riot among those he had 
so completely under his control. If that was a riot, about the time 
the Senator was speaking there was a similar riot in the State-house 
of Pennsylvania, and equally good reason for Federal interference in 
the organization of the Legislature of that State. The breaking up 
of a democratic organization of a Legislature, removing members 
claiming to be elected, and then reorganizing a republican Legisla¬ 
ture in its place may be quelling a riot in political ethics, but it is - 
something new in jurisprudence. 

Sheridan, unacquainted with law, has exhibited a disposition to 
trample laws and constitutions under foot, and asks for unusual and 
unlimited powers; and yet he remains in jdace uurecalled and unre¬ 
buked. 

Why was Sheridan sent to Louisiana ? Where was the necessity ? 
McDowell was the general of division in command, an officer of high 
rank and of recognized ability. The General of the Army, of the 
very highest rank and of the very highest ability, was close at 
hand. Why were they not called upon ? It seems that it required 
some more reckless, more subservient, more de8j)otic officer to per¬ 
form what was required to be done in Louisiana. Whether it was to 
give the coup de grace to liberty in Louisiana or to accomplish a coup 
d'4tat for other purposes, the impulse seemed to be— 

If it were done, when ’tis done, then’t were well it were done quickly. 

When we ask for information and criticise these proceedings, how 
are we answered? By high-sounding notes in praise of Sheridan and 
in denunciation of the people of Louisiana as rebels and murderers; 
that they are engaged in slaughtering negroes by the thousand, and 
that they are yet in a state of qnmi rebellion against the Govern¬ 
ment. In that connection we have the report that was sent to us 
from the Secretary of War, in which we have the communication 
from Lieutenant Colonel Morrow, of December 24, an officer who 
was there in Louisiana, better acquainted with the condition of affairs 
than perhaps any other officer that has communicated information 
to the Department, and I ask the Secretary to read what I have' 
marked. * 

The Chief Clerk read as follows: 

I now come to tbe general condition of affairs in the parislies on Red River, and, 
without the slightest exaggeration, I may say it is had. Respect and regard for 
the General Government are expressed by all classes of people, and so is the deter¬ 
mination not to be, under any circumstances, brought into collision with the Pede- 
ral troops; but there is a universal expression of contempt for the State govern¬ 
ment, and, so far as language could express it, there is open defiance of its author¬ 
ity. The governor is everywhere and by almost every white man denounced a 


23 


“ usurijer,” and the determination is openly expressed by nearly every white man 
not to submit to his usurpation longer tlian submission is compelled by the pres¬ 
ence and force of Federal soldiers. 

Dissatisfaction and discontent are plainly visible in all the acts and conversation of 
the people, and the result is manifest in almost every department of business. Uncul¬ 
tivated fields, unrepaired fences, roofless and dilapidated dwellings, and abandoned 
houses meet the eye at every step, and the whole aspect of the country has a look of 
poverty and neglect. The schools in many parishes are closed for want of money to 
pay the teachers, and I was told again and again that the school funds had been stolen 
by the State officials. In one parish a criminal court had not been held in nearly 
two years, aiid in other parishes no court, criminal or civil, had been held for a long 
time. In a community where there are no courts crime finds a genial soil, and the 
natural result is that the law has fallen into disregard and disrepute. Judges were 
openly charged with corruption, and money, and not justice, is charged with tui-n- 
ing the judicial scale. 

The people rexiorted and seem to believe that the machinery of the Federal 
courts had been used to ox)i)ress them for political ends, and that the Federal 
troops had been used for political purposes. How far this has been the case I have 
no means of knowing, but I do believe that deputy United States marshals have 
used United States soldiers in cases where there was no necessity for them, and, 
from my investigations, in the parishes of Ouachita and Lincoln, I am quite cer¬ 
tain that these civil officers discharged their duties in an unnecessarily harsh if 
not cruel manner. It was represented to me that the marshals are in the habit 
of prowling through the country in the nighttime, accompanied by a posse of sol¬ 
diers, to make arrests of citizens who could be arrested by the marshal unaided, 
and under any circumstances should be arrested in the open daylight. 

The complaints against the State officers were so numerous that a mere enumeration 
of them would fill a volume. Corruption and jobbing in office; partiality and favor¬ 
itism in the administration of justice; exorbitant taxes, rising in some instances to 
7 and 8 per cent, on the appraised value of the property; a ruined credit; a depleted 
State and parish treasury; enormous debts. State and parish; and multiplication of 
officers in the person of favored individuals, are a few of the charges madeby the people 
against their State authorities. 

The political condition of the State is the one subject of conversation everywhere, 
in public and jirivate, and among all classes, except the negro, who feels no interest 
in it, because he does not comi)rehend it. The (lissatisfaction is wide-spread and 
deep, and I am firmly convinced that sooner or latter there will be an outbreak of 
public feeling which will be attended by scenes of fearful violence. The deter¬ 
mination to escape from the rule of the i)resent State government is fixed in every 
mind, and whenever the opportunity presents itself a blow will be struck for the 
“liberation of Louisiana,” to use the expression in common use. A combination or 
organization among the white men ramifies every parish and neighborhood, and 
there is a perfect unanimity of sentiment and will he concert of action whenever 
the time comes to take a decisive stand. "Without going into needless details, I 
give the following as my deep-seated convictions: The present State government 
cannot maintain itself in power a single hour without the protection of Federal 
troops. I do not believe that the present State authorities, even with the protection 
of Federal troops, will be able to collect taxes and perform the functions of gov¬ 
ernment after an early day in the new year. Opposition to them wiU be made at 
every turn, and every step they attempt to take will be beset with obstructions. 
Outside of New Orleans there is no party or organization in the State with suffi¬ 
cient strength or influence to afford the slightest aid. The State government has not 
the con^ence or respect of any portion of the community. 

I not only do not believe, but I am absolutely certain, that there will not be, at any 
time, in Louisiana any organized or authorized resistance to the General Government. 
If the expressions of the peojile are to believed, and I do believe them, there is a 
very sincere desire to live quietly under the protection of the Constitution of the 
United States and enjoy the blessings of the National Government. But there is 
no disguising the fact the jirotection aftbrded by the Federal Administration to the 
government of the present State executive is the cause of hitter personal and 
political feeling in the breasts of nineteen-twentieths of the white inhabitants of 
the State. 

Mr. HAGER. Colonel Morrow’s report is the latest and best offi¬ 
cial information we have as to tlie true condition of the State of 


Louisiana. It is dated Deceraher 24, 1«74, and to it is appended the 
following: 

Headquakteus of the Akmy, 

Saint Louis, Missouri, January 4, 1875. 

This paper is most respectfully forwarded to the Secretary of War with a re- 


24 


quest that he submit it for the personal perusal of the President. I know of no 
officer of Colonel Morrow’s rank who is better qualified to speak and write of mat¬ 
ters like this, and his opinions are entitled to great consideration. I profess to 
have some knowledge of the people of that section both white and black, from a 
long residence among them before the war and several visits since, but I shall not 
intrude mv opinion in the confusion in which the subject is now enveloped. 

W. T. SHERMAN, 

General. 

This is a letter from the General of the Army commending that 
communication to the sx)ecial {personal consideration of the Presi¬ 
dent. Colonel Morrow does not speak of crimes and murders, but 
he speaks of roofless and dila^iidated buildings, abandoned houses, 
desolated homes ; that judges were openly charged with corruption, 
and money, not justice, is charged with turning the judicial scale; 
and that the State government has not the confidence nor the re¬ 
spect of any xiortion of the community. 

In connection with that same subject I have here a document ad¬ 
dressed by the Southern Patrons of Husbandry to their brethren, 
which I should like to have read. I believe it has not yet been re¬ 
ferred to. 

The Chief Clerk read as follows: 

Patrons of Husbandry, 

Office of the State Grange of Louisiana, 

68 Gamp Street, New Orleans, January 16, 1875. 

At a joint session of the executive committees of the State granges of Louisiana 
and Mississipjfi, called at New Oi’leans by Worthy Master H. W. L. Lewis, on the 
16th day of January, 1875, the following appeal to the Patrons of Husbandry 
throughout the United States was otfered and unanimously adopted. 

To the Patrons of Husbandry throughout the United States : 

After mature and most thoughtful consideration, and after long hesitations in 
appealing to you on the subject of our domestic governmental disturbances, we can 
no longer remain silent. The people here do not govern ! They are the subjects of 
satraps. Men rule here who have no sympathy with the people of any race, color, 
or previous condition. Government has become a speculation, a huge monopoly, 
and, as patrons, we know that when these things exist with power, the people^ 
©specially the farmers—sufler. We'are loaded with debt accumulated by these 
governmental monopolies; taxes are eating up what little property the late unhappy 
and fratricidal war left us Capital avoids us or locks itself in the dark cells and 
coffers of the cautious. Our broad savannas and magnolia-crowned summits are 
desolations; and the grandest soil on the continent hungers and begs for the trusty, 
hardy, and worthy sous of the soil in the West and North; but, alas! it hungers 
and begs in vain, for the Government is against us, and your brothers avoid it as 
a lazar-house. Give us peace. Give us good government. Give us the rule of our 
people. Take the military of the General Government from our houses, homes, and 
legislative halls—and so shed upon us the glorious light of true republicanism, the 
splendid civilization and true liberty of America. 

We assemble on this occasion for the purpose of entering into an extended dis¬ 
cussion of this whole subject, and giving to you, brotliers throughout the United 
States, a simple statement of facts, under our obligations as patrons, of all our 
troubles ; but happily we have been forestalled by the sub-committee of the Con¬ 
gress of the United States, whose report has just reached us. Believe us, this re¬ 
port,'made by gentlemen of the North, and intelligent Congressmen of both politi¬ 
cal parties, tells the truth. We refer to it, and trust that every jiatrou to whom 
this appeal may come will give it an attentive reading. 

A. G. CARTER, 

Chairman Executive Committee of Louisiana. 

L. O. BRIDEWELL. 

Chairman Executive Committee of Mississippi. 

Official: WM. H. HARRIS. 

Secretary State Grange, Louisiana. 

Pesolved, That the press of the United States be requested to publish this appeal of 


25 


the Patrons of Husbandry of the States of Louisiana and Mississippi to the patrons 
throughout the United States, and that this resolution be appended to said appeal. 

Such are the matters, as related by these documents, of which Lou¬ 
isiana complains; and yet it is boldly asserted by Senators in face of 
these facts that this exercise of arbitrary power on the part of the 
Government and military has been in behalf of humanity and as 
friends of the country. Friends of humanity! Senators, you are staking 
it on the means of ruin and convulsion. Friends of the country! You 
are rapidly becoming its iron parricides, cleaving down its institutions 
for partisan purposes and tearing them limb from limb—not man’s in 
humanity, but in this instance man’s humanity to man makes Louisi¬ 
ana’s burdens greater than her people can bear. 

But it has been frequently asserted during this debate that there 
has been a great decrease in the negro vote in the South, which is 
evidence of fraud in the late elections. I would ask does the negro 
vote belong to the rexmblican party by right of conquest as booty of 
war ? Perhaps the blacks of the South as well as the whites of the 
North have discovered that it is to their interest to vote with the 
conservatives. In the South the whites and the blacks are dependent 
on each other. Their future destiny for good or for evil is necessarily 
intermingled. The one is the owner of the soil; the other supplies 
the labor. If they are to live in harmony, there must be accord in 
feelings as well as in interest. To array the one in hostility to the 
other is an act of barbarity calamitous to each and to the prosperity 
of their State. 

But, sir, the republican vote of the South has not diminished more 
than it has elsewhere; and if that be a cause for interposition with 
Federal authority in Louisiana, the same or greater cause there must 
be for interference in New York, Pennsylvania, and other States. In 
the late election the contest was one in which other elements than 
those of mere politics were involved. It was a movement on the part of 
the ])eo])le pro patria. It was in behalf of honesty against dishonesty in 
matters pertaining to government, of reform against corruption and 
wide-spread demoralization, of well-administered constitutional gov¬ 
ernment against usurpation and lawlessness. The conservative ele¬ 
ment, non-combatants in party politics, that large class of thinking, 
intelligent men who vote for country rather than party, supported 
by the independent press, have availed themselves of opposition or¬ 
ganizations and best nominations to set their seal of condemnation 
upon the dominant party and a corrupt and despotic administration 
of the Government. The result is that the great republican party, 
late so powerful, so reckless, and so arrogant, is to-day prostrate not 
only in Louisiana but also in New York, Indiana, Pennsylvania, and 
other States, with its pride and its banner humbled in the dust. But 
the lesson is not understood, and Senators are at a loss to account for 


26 


tills great change in public sentiment. It was not accomplished by 
the slaughter of negroes or by fraud North or South, but by— 

Freemen casting with unpurchascfl hand 

The vote that shakes the turrets of the land. 

Read its causes in the reckless, aggressive legislation of Congress. 

With a deranged, depreciated paper currency; with the accumu¬ 
lated burden of a great national debt, and a high protective tariff 
upon the necessaries of life, look at the legislation of Congress. Spe¬ 
cial privileges, subsidies, bonuses have been bestowed with un¬ 
sparing hand, contracts have been awarded—even the collection / 

of the revenues farmed out, by which party favorites have been eil- 
riched at the expense of the Government without the expenditure on 
their part of a dollar. Extravagance, peculation, and corruption per¬ 
vade every Department of the Government, and scarcely a day passes 
but we hear of frauds, defalcations, and peculations being practiced, 
and practiced with impunity, by Government officials. Public oj)inion 
has reached the conclusion that unless there be some reform of the 
abuses of the administration of public affairs; unless the usurpation 
and extravagance of the Government be checked; unless the ava¬ 
lanche of corruption which now is threatening and impending over 
us be stayed, they will soon come upon us with such crushing force 
as utterly to destroy and overwhelm us as a nation. A sublime proc¬ 
lamation stands on record. God said, “ Let there be light: and there 
was light.” In the recent elections the people said, Let there be 
light: ” and there is light. Vox populi, vox Dei. It is tinging the west¬ 
ern and the eastern hills. It may not yet have illumined this Cham¬ 
ber, but there is the dawn of a better day at the other end of the 
Capitol. It has brought joy and confidence and hope to our despair¬ 
ing people, especially to those of our own race and lineage of the 
South, who are struggling for wife and child and sacred home against 
an invasion of Vandal spoilsmen from the North and a tyranny and 
oppression on the part of the Government unparalleled in the history 
of the nation. I tnist, sir, that this light is yet destined to illumine 
the land and bring the nation back to honesty, reason, intelligence,, 
and trnth. May God speed the day. 

Mr. President, facts and popular sentiment in Louisiana, so far as 
developed, indicate beyond a reasonable doubt that in the recent 
election in that State the popular vote was with the conservatives.. 

Equally conclusive does it appear to me that by a combination be¬ 
tween the same parties who conceived and effected the usurpation in 
1872 the people of Louisiana were prevented from installing in office 
the officers they elected. The determination is manifest in despite of 
the popular vote, in despite of Constitution and laws, to establish 
negro supremacy, and through the negro the supremacy of the repub¬ 
lican party in Louisiana. To effect this the white race and its civil- 


27 


ization must be made subservient to the black race and its civiliza¬ 
tion—the black race just emerged from the condition of slaves, and 
wbicb as a people has never exhibited any administrative capacity 
for self-government. We may rejoice that the genius of American 
liberty is no longer destined to bear a fettered companion by her side 
in the car of triumph; but I am not among those who believe it is 
the mission of the American Eepublic to champion this race and place 
them in the van of civilization to the exclusion of our own race. 
Better that the republican party should die and that our race and 
the Constitution live. This black race has been emancipated, made 
citizens, armed with the ballot, and like all other citizens must work 
out their destiny according to their capacity. You cannot legislate 
them into a more exalted condition than nature has placed them in, 
or the people into a belief in their intellectual equality. You might 
as well undertake by legislation to remove the distinguishing marks 
in their physiology that characterize their race from ours, or to legis¬ 
late the people into a belief in the Darwinian theory of the creation 
or any particular system of theology or metaphysics. 

Sir, I have no prejudices against this race on account of color and 
previous condition. I acknowledge all their constitutional rights 
under the late amendments to the Constitution. I have no wish to’ 
disturb them. Involuntarily, by the avarice and cupidity of our 
race, they were sold and purchased in every State of the Union where 
slave labor was profitable. Upon their emancipation they should 
have been regarded as wards of the nation and taken care of as such 
on reservations or colonized, as has been the case with the Indian^j 
although I would wish them a better fate and kinder treatment than 
has befallen the Indians. Upon their emancipation they were igno¬ 
rant, uneducated, and incapacitated for govermental purposes ; they 
had no interest in the soil, and were dependent upon the white race 
even for subsistence. 

It was necessary for them as well as the white race, if they were to 
live in accord and peace, that they should be in harmony. But, sir, 
other counsels prevailed; they have been the instruments, not the 
subjects, of reconstruction and legislation. Numerically, if not intel¬ 
lectually, they proved a voting power too available to withstand par¬ 
tisan purposes. But this is not sufficient. The struggle is still pend¬ 
ing in the effort by penal laws to force the two races into social rela¬ 
tions which set at defiance the laws of nature, our tastes, our reason, 
and public sentiment even in our families. Is this malice or philan¬ 
thropy ? Is it the behest of party ©r a sense of duty that dictates 
this policy ? And why is it confined to the African race ? There is 
another race in our midst, the aborigines of the country, more homo¬ 
geneous as a race, more entitled to our sympathy, once the lords 
paramount of our vast domain, native to the soil, and yet driven from 


28 


their homes and habitations. Is there no tear of syinpatliy and no 
philanthropy for the Indian ? Is he not also our brother and part of 
the great human family ? Sir, we have evidence that the Indian has 
attained a higher civilization, a more advanced x>osition in art and 
science than was ever attained by the negro in his native Africa. To 
the Indian the Congress has sent balls and bayonets and reserva¬ 
tions ; to his inferior, the negro, it would send not only political and 
social eqality, bitt dominion in government. Can this inconsistency 
be explained ? Perhaps it consists in this: The Indian is of no polit¬ 
ical significance, but the negro, if properly managed, can contribute 
something to sustain a decaying party. 

Sir, as a member of the senate of the State of California, it was my 
privilege to vote for the thirteenth amendment to the Constitution. 
I regarded the question of slavery as involved in the war ; that it 
was placed in the wager of battle, and that by the wager of battle it 
was determined. It was guaranteed and protected by the Constitu-. 
tion, but by the adoption of this amendment, acquiesced in by the 
South, it was abolished; and I sincerely hoped that there would never 
thereafter be a great national question to disturb us as a people or 
prevent us from fulfilling that great destiny which I believe, in the 
.providence of God, lies before us. It was also my privilege to vote 
against the ratification of the fifteenth amendment, and I then ex¬ 
pressed my views at length in regard to that proposition; and as they 
were reported at the time by the press, in order to show to what ex¬ 
tent I prognosticated what would ensue, I will here rejiroduce some 
of the views I expressed on that occasion. I ask the Secretary to 
read what is marked. 

The Chief Clerk read as follows: 

This suffrage question is not without its difficulties and embarrassments, and is 
attracting attention in all civilized countries having any pretensions to free insti¬ 
tutions. Since the decay of the feudal system there has been a struggle on the part 
of the people to resist oppression and to gain power. The tendency of modern civil¬ 
ization has been to destroy aristocracies, level ranks, and diffuse power among the 
people. A writer has justly remarked: The history of European society is the his¬ 
tory of the feudal system ; the record of its rise and growth is the history of Roman 
polity and primitive barbarism ; the record of its decline and fall is the history of 
modem social development. Ancient progress was toward extreme social and polit¬ 
ical inequality; modern progress is toward extreme social and political equal¬ 
ity. Submission was the great lesson taught by the former; freedom is the still 
greater lesson taught by the latter. Monarchies and aristocracies were the flow¬ 
ers of the old seed; democracy is the first fruit of the new. This is true of all 
homogeneous peoples, peoples of the same race and lineage, and only as to such. 
Under our system we recognize no distinctions among men of races kindred with 
our own, hut admit all, without regard to station or intelligence, to political and 
social equality. Perhaps for the first time we present to the world the singular 
spectacle of a'superior race struggling to admit an inferior degraded race to polit¬ 
ical and social equality, when, too, that race has not capacity sufficient to demand it 
as a right, or intelligence enough to understand or exercise it if it should be con¬ 
ferred. In England in particular this suffrage qxiestion is engaging the attention 
of publicists, the Parliament, and the press. Much has been spoken and written in 
regard to impartial manhood suffrage, and arguments used there have been reiter 
ated by our public men in this country, where in fact they have no application. 

But in England the people are not struggling for equality of races, but for politi¬ 
cal, religious, and industrial freedom, which is constitutional with us. There the 
people have not yet fully attained free school, free church, free press, and free 


29 


assembly, which is also constitutional with us. The liberalists there do not con¬ 
tend that all are qualified to enjoy the elective franchise; but, as we gather their 
ideas from the publications of the day, progression with them tends to the evolu¬ 
tion of a preponderating power in the State—well understood and recognized by 
ns—the power of the people; and the result they wish to attain is what we enjoy— 
self-government by an intelligent people. By the term manhood suffrage they do 
not intend suffrage should be extended to all classes properly belonging to the 
genus homo; but by mannood is meant the physical, mental and moral, maturity of 
a nation, and political progress consists in bringing within the pale of the Consti¬ 
tution so much of the national manhood and no more than is qualified. No Eng¬ 
lish reformer is so insane or fanatic as to clamor for extending the elective fran¬ 
chise to all races of men, as, for instance, to their subjects in South Africa, the 
Hottentot, or to their subjects in Asia, the Hindo, or the native of India. John 
Stuart Mill, perhaps the most liberal and progressive of all, while he is disposed to 
disregard all distinctions of sex or color, would yet limit suffrage to those wha 
coiila read an English book or do a sum in the rule of three. 

To ratify this amendment and admit this race without restriction to the enjoy¬ 
ment of tne elective franchise and exclude those who participated in the rebellion, 
is to surrender the greater portion of the Southern States to the dominion of the 
blacks. Eor a time they may be controlled by the Congress and its agents as is 
now the case, but soon leaders of their own race or of ours will appear on the sur¬ 
face, and what will be the result? Necessarily class legislation, in which the ma¬ 
jority will legislate to promote its own interest, and the interest of the minority and 
the general interest will be disregarded. Such are the teachings of history. Sup¬ 
pose, as is aptly put by Mill in discussing this question, the majority are whites 
and the minority are blacks, or the I’everse, is it at all probable the majority would 
allow equal justice to the minority ? Or, as he further sa^ys, suppose the majority 
are Protestants and the minority Catholics, or the majority are Engli.sh and the 
minority Irish, or the reverse, would there not be the same danger ; or, to bring the 
matter home to ourselves, if under this amendment Congress should extend suf¬ 
frage to the Chinese, and they should be in the majority, what would be the result 
here to our own white race ? If the policy of the Congress prevails, the result will 
be we will have States composed of different races, which, by the inevitable laws of 
nature and poimlation, can never beceme homogeneous, either socially or politically, 
in which the governing power will be controlled by the numerically preponderating 
race. Which that may be in the Southeni States or in our own State remains to 
be revealed in the future. When the Congress shall abandon the idea of legislat¬ 
ing negroes into white men, and of retaining the political control in the late insurgent 
States by negro suffrage for purposes of party supremacy, reconstruction becomes 
easy. If the same amount of money spent for these purposes had been expended 
to encourage emigration from Europe, we might have added to our i)oi)ulation at 
least ten millions of inhabitants of our own race and lineage—worth more to us than 
the whole African race. 

Mr. HAGER. Mr. President, altliougli entertaining these views at 
that time, I bow to the supremacy of the Constitution and accept the 
negro as a citizen and a voter and as onr equal before the law, I am 
willing to extend to him words of encouragement, and if he proves 
himself onr equal physically, mentally, and intellectually, I will re¬ 
joice. If he outstrips us in the race for supremacy I shall be willing 
to yield him the palm. 

The fourteenth amendment to the Constitution, or so much as it is 
necessary to cite, is as follows: 

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdic¬ 
tion thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. 
No State shall make or enforce any law which sliall abridge the privileges or im¬ 
munities of citizens of the United States ; nor shall any State de^mve any person 
of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any [person 
within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. 

The fifteenth, as we all know, is that “the right of citizens of the 
United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United 
States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition 
' of servitude.’^ 

Our Government under State and Federal Constitutions is a repre- 


30 


sentative government, witli a distribution of powers, as we all know, 
between tbe Executive, the Legislature, and the judiciary. It is com¬ 
posed of States sovereign to the extent of written compacts, with a 
Federal Government sovereign to the extent of delegated power, 
recognizing the source of all power to be with the people and leav¬ 
ing the elective franchise to be settled and determined by the respect¬ 
ive States. To what extent are these amendments limitations on the 
States? To the extent expressed in the amendments. It is for the 
judiciary, not the Executive or the Congress, to determine if a State 
law be in contravention of these amendments or not. There the negro 
is protected in all his constitutional rights. Congress may legislate 
to provide remedies and to facilitate actions in the courts if any citi- 
z&n is deprived of any constitutional rights, but Congress has no more 
right now than before the amendments to annul the legislation of a 
State than a State has authority to annul acts of Congress. Neither 
has the President, or the military any more constitutional author¬ 
ity to invade the States than they had before these amendments were 
made—either to annul or interfere with the elections or to organize 
or destroy State governments. To do so is a usurpation dangerous to 
the whole Union and to our republican form of government. 

But the Congress is not satisfied with these constitutional guar¬ 
antees, but is engaged in efibrts by legislation to make the white and 
the black races homogeneous by forcing on them social equality; and 
I confess that I have heard with abhorrence during the present and 
at the first session of this Congress utterances within this Chamber in 
support of this kind of legislation favoring the total obliteration of 
social distinction between the races. 

Now, sir, although it be an old subject, what is the history and 
character of this negro race for which our own must be degraded and 
displaced, our country convulsed, and our Constitution invaded and 
endangered ? Historically speaking, we have known something of 
him for the last four thousand years, from the days of Moses and the 
Egyptian kings. As he was in his native Africa four thousand years 
ago, so he remains at this day unchanged and unimproved, still en¬ 
gaged in fetich worship, still practicing human sacrifices, and the 
kings of Dahomy are at this day floating in their reservoirs of human 
blood as they were centuries ago. We have seen him on this conti¬ 
nent in Hayti attempting to found a state and to build up a govern¬ 
ment upon the ruins of one of our own race, excluding the white 
man from all participation in that government, and what find we 
there. Degeneracy and decay. We have seen him in Jamaica eman¬ 
cipated, outnumbering the whites ; and what find we there ? The 
island, once among the most lovely and prolific on the sea, is to-day 
regressing to its primitive forest and jungle, and the negro is relaps¬ 
ing into his primitive barbarism. We have seen him in Mexico and 


31 


■Central America in the mixed blood; and there, too, we find degen¬ 
eracy and decay. On his native continent we have heard of Egyptian 
and Carthagenian states. On the borders of that same Mediterranean 
Sea that bounds his native continent we have heard of Syrian, 
Phcenician, Grecian, Roman states; 'but who ever yet heard of an 
African negro state that has emerged from barbarism and risen to 
any position among civilized nations ? 

There have been various degrees of progress and civilization among 
the Aztecs and Incas on this continent, in Japan, China, India, Persia, 
Arabia; but the African negro in his native Africa remains as un¬ 
changed at this day as the African baboon. We search in vain in 
the dim mists of the past for their jihilosophers, their mathematicians, 
their astronomers, their civil engineers, their political economists. 
We in vain explore their records to find a Plato, a Socrates, a New¬ 
ton, a Bacon, a Shakespeare. Such is the past; now what will the 
future reveal ? 

We are told, and it has been reiterated again and again in this 
Chamber, that all men are created equal. I admit it. That it is so 
declared by the great charter of our liberties, the Declaration of Inde¬ 
pendence. I do not deny it. All men are equal precisely in the sense 
in which it was intended by the framers of that instrument—equal in 
the enjoyment of all natural rights; equal to breathe the free air of 
heaven and to enjoy the light of the sun, moon and stars; equal to 
earn their bread by the sweat of their brow; equal to partake of the 
fruits of the earth and the waters of the babbling brooks. In these re¬ 
spects all men are equal. But to say that they are physically, mentally, 
morally equal is a fallacy that never has been and never will be true. 
It is not true of our own race. It is not true of Seuators in this Cham¬ 
ber. It is not true even of brothers in the same family. One may be 
a Hercules in strength, another a mere pigmy. One may be a Henry 
or a Webster, holding senates and assemblies spell-bound by his elo¬ 
quence, while another is a mere mumbling idiot. One may be a 
mathematician or astronomer, calculating the dimensions of the sun, 
♦ moon, and stars, and their distances from each other, while another, 

with all the education you may bestow upon him, is incapable of de¬ 
monstrating the simplest problem in mathematics. One may be a poet, 
soaring on the wings of song, while another is incapable of turning 
two lines of rhythm. One may be a meek and lowly follower of his 
divine Master, engaged in works of charity and love, while another is 
never satisfied unless he is engrossed with scenes of violence and blood. 
Are these men equal—physically, morally, mentally equal ? Is the 
Laplander of the north of Europe the equal of the intelligent German 
of Central Europe ? Is the Hottentot of South Africa the equal of 
-the Italian of South Italy ? Are the Esquimaux of the north, or the 


32 


aborigines, the Indians in our midst, the equal of the men I see about 
me in this Chamber ? 

But, sir, I shall not undertake to discuss this question theologi¬ 
cally or psychologically. . I am willing to concede that Adam was tho 
great final consummation of the works of the Almighty, and that H® 
then rested from his labors. I do not disi^ute it; but how He arrived 
at this great consummation we have not been informed. Whether it 
was by gradual advancement or by one act of creation has not been 
revealed to us. 

Paleontology has disclosed foot-prints on the sands of time—steji- 
ping-stones—showing that much has been dropped by the waysido 
and become extinct before the end was reached. In our researches in 
natural history, in physiology, and in ethnology we find much to attract 
our attention and to engage our serious reflection. We can do this 
philosophically without subjecting ourselves to the charge of inten¬ 
tion to ridicule any portion of the creation. 

When we see the monkey sometimes dressed in our habiliments 'wo 
are amused and surprised at his displays of watchfulness and intel¬ 
ligence. He looks something like our race but we do not regard 
him as such. A step higher and we have the ourang and the chim¬ 
panzee and the resemblance is yet greater, but we do not receive 
them as of the human family. Still a step upward and we have the 
gorilla, and there the resemblance is still stronger. In the gorilla 
you have the same bodily organization, without the caudal append¬ 
age, the same articulations, the same internal viscera, the same 
venous and arterial circulation of the blood, the same nervous sys¬ 
tem and vital organs, substantially the same number of bones in the 
body; and the most skillful anatomist is unable to distinguish his 
skeleton or the greater portion of it from that of the human r-ace 
when they are intermingled; but we do not regard him as of the 
human family. 

Now, sir, I do not wish it to be understood that I am making these 
remarks with any view to compare this portion of the creation with 
the negro, but rather with the human family generally, while refer¬ 
ring to certain physiological and ethnological facts. Leaving the 
gorilla and advancing upward we reach the savage of Australia and 
Borneo, the wild man of the interior of those islands, untamable and 
unapproachable; without a written or spoken language ; uttering an 
unintelligible muttering gibberish, and fleeing from the face of the 
white man like the beasts of the forest. Does humanity commence 
here ? Is this the dividing line ? When we leave the Australian sav¬ 
age and pursue our investigations further through the different races 
or species or types of mankind—place the negro where you please, I 
have no disposition to misplace him—through the Esquimaux and 
the Digger Indian, the lowest of the race on this continent, through. 


33 


the Kanaka, tlie Hottentot, tlie Arab, the Mongolian, &c., we finally 
reach the last great consummation, the crowning work of the Al¬ 
mighty when he rested—the Caucasian Adam, the type of man I 
see about me in this Chamber. 

Now, sir, admitting that the human family are all a part of the 
same brotherhood and of the same creation, must we not admit that 
there are types, varieties, species of man that we can neither ignore 
nor conceal ? And this distinction pervades the whole animal creation. 
The newfoundland and the poodle, the greyhound and the spaniel 
belong to the same family. Are they equal ? The thoroughbred, the 
donkey, the Shetland pony, and the zebra are different species of the 
same race; the genus equus, are they equal ? I do not think the 
donkey is the equal of the horse; nor do I think it possible to legis¬ 
late them into physical or social equality. You may cross them and 
you have the hybrid, the mule; but you cannot propagate a race of 
mules. 

You may cross the negro with the white race and you have the 
mule, or the mulatto, which is a synonymous word, but you cannot 
propagate a race of mulattoes, you must go back to the original stock, 
on the one side or the other, or the race will become extinct. Such 
are the facts and they are as well ascertained as anything that is re¬ 
corded in physiology. So with the aborigines of this continent. They 
have disappeared before the approach of civilization, and the white 
race, like the forest. So with the Kanaka of the Sandwich Islands 
intermingled with our race; he is rapidly dying out. So too with the 
admixture of blood in Mexico and Central America—you have but to 
go there to learn it is limited by inexorable laws. We cannot change 
the immutable laws of the creation by legislation but must accept of 
facts as they are. Long back in the past the question was asked. Can 
the Ethiopian change his skin or the leopard his spots ? The answer 
to-day is the same that it was two thousand years ago. In our Fath¬ 
er’s house, as we are instructed, there are many mansions; so it might 
be said in our Father’s family there are many races or species of 
mankind. We cannot change it by legislation. Leave it where God 
and the immutable laws of the creation have left it, now and forever, 
for man cannot cover what God has revealed. 

But, sir, if we extend social equality to the negro, can we deny it 
to the Chinese ? They are superior as a race to the negro. They 
have attained a higher civilization and have maintained a govern¬ 
ment for thousands and thousands of years, and far beyond historic 
records. We on the Pacific coast have a x)eculiar interest in this 
question. We are in that x>osition where western and eastern civil¬ 
ization meet. We have to breast this influx of immigration that is 
flowing in upon us from Asia. With our new commercial relations 
and with steam communication with Asia ; with these new ideas of 
political and social equality among all races of men, what is the 
3 II 


34 


future destined to reveal in California and on the Pacific coast 
China might, without injury to herself, spare from her surplus popu¬ 
lation a million or ten million men, sufficient to give to that race the 
control and dominion on the Pacific. 

We in California have tried hy legislation to prohibit Chinese im¬ 
migration—especially such as are brought there as coolies and for 
immoral purposes—and by penal laws have tried to exclude them, in 
order to protect our people from demoralization and contamination. 
But we have not succeeded. These laws have been sustained by our 
tribunals and by the unanimous opinion of the supreme court of our 
State. But recently a case occurred where some Chinese women, 
imxiorted, as it was proven, for immoral purposes, were remanded 
under the laws of California to the vessel that brought them there to 
be transported back to China. This judgment, on appeal to the 
supreme court, was unanimously affirmed; yet a Federal j udge of 
the Supreme Court of the United States, who happened to be there at 
the time, released them on habeas corpus because, as he held, their de¬ 
tention was in contravention of the fourteenth amendment of the Con¬ 
stitution ; in other words, that that amendment gave the same pro¬ 
tection to coolies and prostitutes that it did to decent people, and 
that no legislation of the State of California could lire vail against it. 
If this be the law, in the course of a few years Chinese coolies and 
prostitutes may be in dominion in California, and may as thoroughly 
control the destiny of that State as the negroes now control in South 
Carolina, provided you extend to that race i^olitical and social 
equality. I presume consistency will require this to be done. 

Is it more improbable that political and social equality will be ex¬ 
tended to the Chinese in the next ten years than it was ten years ago 
that it would be extended to the emancipated slaves of the South ? 
They have proved themselves superior as a race to the negro, and 
have exhibited a better capacity to govern. As far as iiossible you 
have placed the negro in the van of civilization in the South, and are 
struggling by acts of despotism to maintain him there. How long 
will it be before the Chinese will take the same position on the Pa¬ 
cific ? If you recognize universal political and social equality among 
races and species of man, you cannot deny to him what you require 
shall be yielded to the negro. 

In this respect we have presented to the world a memorable exam¬ 
ple, for the first time recorded in history, where a superior race has 
struggled to jdace an inferior one on social and political equality with 
themselves ; and that too when the inferior race had not the power 
to enfoce it and did not demand it as a right. If it bo necessary to 
control the States of the Pacific for political purposes, will not the 
same influences now operating in Louisiana demand that suffrage 
shall be extended to the Chinese ? 

But, sir, it is sometimes asked, why do you object? Do you fear 


35 


the rivalry of these inferior races and that they may outstrip us in 
the race for supremacy ? No; I have no such fears. As soon might 
you expect the thoroughbred as he nobly leaps from the springing 
turf should be outstripped in the race by the browsing donkey. As 
well might you expect that the— 

F.'ilcon, toweriii.^ in Ixer pride of place, 

Should by a mousing owl be hawk’d at, and kill’d. 

No; I do not fear that they will outstrip us in anything, unless in 
some of the Southern States the negro or in California the Chinese 
may outstrip us in number. But with these new ideas as to amal¬ 
gamation, miscegenation, civil rights, and social equality now pre¬ 
vailing, with juxtaposition and density of iiopulation, I fear in the 
slow revolving years of the future we may present to the world that 
effete and moribund national condition that we now see exemplified 
in Mexico and Central America. While we cannot raise them up to 
our level, they may drag us down. 

Now, Mr. President, it is not the part of wisdom nor does humanity 
require that, either by legislation or by usurpation, we should place 
the negro or the Mongolian in dominion over men of our own 
race and lineage or force them into social relations in violation 
of the laws of creation and the rational judgment of mankind. Such 
were not the teachings of the founders of the Republic. They came 
here from civilized Europe seeking political and religious liberty and 
social equality. They landed upon this then unexplored continent 
where before them was wide, unbounded, magnificent wilderness, 
where sprang and fell the forest leaves, where ebbed and flowed the 
ocean’s tide in uninterrupted stillness, where the same sun that looked 
upon the vast empires they had left, their moldering kingdoms, 
their solemn temples, their gorgeous palaces, their oppressive aris¬ 
tocracies, here looked upon the still dwelling of utter loneliness 
where nature sat enthroned in original beauty undisturbed by the 
tyrannies, the oppressions, and fettered humanities of the lands they 
had left. They met almost beneath the wide-spreading branches of 
this primeval forest—for what ? To discuss the rights of man, forms 
of government, and social equality. They founded a state; they 
framed a constitution. The negro and the Indian were here. Did 
they recognize them as of their fraternity ? Did they take the negro 
and hug him and press him to their hearts as an equal and a brother ? 
Did they talk of or practice amalgamation or miscegenation ? No such 
fanaticism then prevailed. Why, sir, among the earliest of my recol¬ 
lections in my own home in a northern State, and my friend the 
Senator from New Jersey, [Mr. Freiinghuysen, ] I may also say 
my friend of former years in our native State, will probably 
corroborate what I say, whether it was in the public school-room, in 
the domestic circle, or in the holy sanctuary, the black man and 
the white man had each their place. State after State was admitted. 


30 


constitution after constitution was formed, and yet it was an almost 
universally recognized principle of constitutional law that the gov¬ 
erning power was the white race. 

Such were the example and teaching of our fathers. But they went 
further. They invited friends and relatives they had left in the Old 
World to join them in the New. They passed naturalization laws to 
encourage immigration. Did they extend them to the negro or to 
the Indian ? No, they confined them to our own white race; and in our 
legislation a few days ago to correct mistakes in the revised laws 
you were reminded of this when we went through the form of restor¬ 
ing the word “ white” in the naturalization laws because it had been 
expunged without authority. All Europe availed themselves of our 
liberal laws, and ship after ship freighted with men of our own white 
race have landed upon our shores and added to our population and 
to our prosperity, and the supply is yet miexhausted. And all Europe 
is to-day thankful for the blessings that our institutions have con¬ 
ferred upon the human race. Go among the laboring classes of Eu¬ 
rope, go to Germany, to Switzerland, to Ireland, tell them you are 
an American, and see the radiant face, the sparkling eye as group 
after group gather around you to inquire after friends who, more 
fortunate than they, have reached this land of abundance and pros¬ 
perity. Listen, too, if you will to the downtrodden, broken-hearted 
man as from under the covering cloud of his poverty and his oppres¬ 
sions he pours forth his prayer to the Father of all that ours may 
be the steady, the radiant course that shall never bewilder or betray. 
So let us join him in his prayer that it may be. Let the downtrodden 
and oppressed of all civilized nations still hail our country as the life¬ 
boat of liberty to the world, as the little ark destined of Heaven to 
bear it through all the dangers of tempest and of deluge. But God 
forbid. Senators, God forbid that we should extend this invitation 
to or amalgamate with the semi-civilized hordes of Asia, or with the 
barbarous tribes of Africa. They will but deteriorate our race and 
retard our civilization. Now our civilization on luminous wings 
soars eagle-like to Jove. Fetter it, weight it down, crush it to the 
earth by an admixture with these inferior races, and it needs no 
scroll—no prophet’s scroll—to predict the Hyperions of this century 
may become satyrs in the next; that the noble godlike Caucasian 
North American that I see around me here may a century hence be¬ 
come what the ignoble hybrid Mexican or Central American is to-day. 

In saying this, again I must disclaim any intention to reflect on 
any of God’s creatures, either of the black or other races of man. I 
take them as we find them with no disposition to criticise or inveigh 
against the wisdom of their development, and fully impressed with 
our inability to change the laws that control the universe. As I 
\ have said, I concede to the negro all that the Constitution guarantees. 

But I ask you to examine the records of the past and instruct me, 


r 


37 

if it be possible, bow you will iuforce full social equality and an ad^ 
mixture of races without reaping the consequences we see exemplified 
in Mexico and Central America. 

Mr. President, no imperial decree bas been promulgated for tbe 
preservation of our country. Sbe must rely upon tbe patriotism, tbe 
intelligence, and tbe devotion of ber sons in tbe day of ber prosperity 
as well as in tbe bour of ber adversity. Tbe warning voice of bistory 
of every country and of every age, as bas been eloquently remarked, 
comes to tell us that repubbcs when once lost are lost forever; that 
tbougb tbeir spirit never dies to others, it never revives when lost to 
regenerate themselves. Look at tbe shadows and darkness that have 
rested for ages on tbe habitations of tbe Holy City. Look at despot¬ 
ism worse than either as it bas brooded with raven wing upon tbe 
very bosom of tbe buried republics, and let us be warned by tbeir 
mysterious doom. 

Does tbe same destiny await us ? Are we too to fall beneath the 
assaults of ambition and usurpation, tbe madness of some factious 
bour, and our country, now so grand, so full of hope, to be remembered 
as a delusive meteor which rose full of promise, dazzled with momen¬ 
tary splendor but to leave tbe world in greater darkness than before ? 

A thousand years scarce serves to form a state; 

An hour may lay it in the dust. 

A hundred years have not yet elapsed since our nation’s birth, 
and yet we have almost verified tbe truth of tbe lines of tbe poet. 

We have undergone tbe fate of nations—been baptized in tbe blood 
and thunder of civil war. But it is not tbe first time that a nation 
bas been thus scourged and afflicted. To say nothing of ancient 
times, point me to any modern nation that bas risen to any proud 
distinction among tbe nations of tbe earth that bas not bad its civil 
war and its rebellions. Look at England, at revolutionary France, 
at Germany, at Italy, at Spain now in tbe midst of revolution; all have 
bad their rebellious and civil wars ; yet they live, and if they are 
not homogeneous it is attributable to other causes than animosities 
engendered by recollections of these calamities. Cannot we of tbe 
same race and lineage without giving tbe ascendency and dominion 
to tbe negro, without this social equality being thrust upon us, once 
more gather around tbe same common altar of our country, and band 
in band and shoulder to shoulder go through tbe great work of 
elevating our nation to that high position which I believe with good 
government sbe is destined to attain. 

In tbe course of this debate Senators have expressed devotion to tbe 
country and a determination to cling to tbe ship of state whether 
sbe is to ride tbe waves in triumph or to be ingulfed. When cor¬ 
ruption and demoralization are overspreading the land, when we see j 

a growing intolerance of law throughout tbe country, a disregard for 
•constitutional restraint, and a tendency to despotism at this great 


38 


center, when we see legislation for the perpetuity of party rather 
than country, I would ask, in all solemnity and seriousness, is it not 
time to port the helm. Under your guidance the ship of state is 
drifting into turbulent waters and untried seas. The Constitution is 
overboard and you are without chart or compass. The warning voice 
of patriotism from all quarters of the land is exclaiming to you to-day 
in appealing tones, behold those treacherous rocks, that dangerous sea 
into which you are drifting. But you heed it not. Eatherthan give 
up the control of the ship, rather than surrender the political ascend¬ 
ency you now enjoy, you would dare the breakers. And yet what is 
party in comparison to country ? Parties are ephemeral, rise and fall 
and pass away. In a few years the places that know us now will 
know us no more; but I trust our country will flourish in immortal 
youth, to bless those who may succeed us until the utmost gener¬ 
ation of men. Again I would say, port the helm. 

Senatoris eat dvitatia libertateni tueri. Let us bow to the injunction 
in a spirit of devotion and of love and of reverence for our coun¬ 
try. It is the duty of the Senator to preserve the liberties of the 
State. It is the duty of the Senator to protect the Constitution 
of the country. Let us never forget to protect it. It comes to us 
as our heritage from Washington and his compatriots. So let it be 
preserved, or what remains of it be preserved inviolate. Cling to 
it with a patriot’s love, with a father’s enthusiasm and with a Chris¬ 
tian’s hope. And in these degenerate days, amid the straggles for 
party supremacy, when blind ambition or treason or ultraism or 
usurpation would hawk at and tear it, let us, forgetting all and 
sacrificing all in its favor, inculcate the necessity of its preservation 
and of a once more harmonious and united country. Do it with 
that same devotion as of old chaste virgins kept bright the sacred 
fires upon the altars of Vesta, until shrine and worshiper perished 
amid the ruins of a shattered empire. Let your devotion, I say,, 
be equal to this, and in the words of Lincoln, “ with charity for all 
and with malice to none,” our ship of state will again drift into a silent 
sea and our glorious Union, like the rock of Megara upon which 
was placed the lyre of Apollo, will resound with the same voice of 
sweetness and of harmony from whichever side it may be touched.. 
But if this violation and intolerance of law now so manifest is to 
continue unchecked, this tendency to usurpation is to pass unre¬ 
buked, and our republican institutions shall be once submerged in 
the rising tide of despotism, you will recover your liberties when the 
sun shall linger in the evening cloud forgetful of the voice of morning— 

When ships are drifting -with the dead 

To shores where all is aumb. 


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